Revealed: UK is the fifth most expensive place when learning to drive

A learner driver in Britain pays on average £1,247 in total trying to gain their licence

Learning to drive is what most young people look forward to doing the moment they turn 17 but what they probably don’t realise is how much it’s going to cost them.

A learner driver in Britain pays on average around £1,247 in total trying to gain their licence.

In the UK, the average price for one driving lesson is around £24, so depending on how many lessons you need to have before you’re ready for your practical driving test, the cost can add up quite quickly.

It can now be revealed that these figures place the UK in fifth place as the most expensive country in the world to learn to drive and pass your practical driving test.

Veygo by Admiral, who provide short term car insurance, carried out the research and Britain came in 5th position after they looked at 15 different places around the world to compare prices.

What they did discover is that the cost of learning to drive differs quite tellingly depending on which country you live.

Veygo worked out the cost of learning to drive by multiplying the average price of a lesson by what the recommended amount of lessons are for each county, how much a provisional licence cost & the cost to upgrade to a full licence and how much it cost for the theory test followed by the practical.

Although the UK came fifth, our average cost is nothing compared to what learner drivers in Hong Kong have to fork out – they have to pay out more than twice what it costs in the UK, a whopping £3,100.

Just one lesson in Hong Kong costs on average £97 – more than four times as much as a learner has to pay in the UK!

They must then wait for six to nine months before they can take their test and if they fail, the second attempt will cost them more.

And whereas in the UK you can learn to drive with someone you know if they’ve been driving for three years and are aged 21, in Hong Kong you have to take lessons with a licenced instructor.

If you want cheap driving lessons, Malta is the place to live as one lesson costs just £13 – almost half the price of a lesson in the UK, whilst the average cost in total to learn to drive is a mere £328 – around a quarter of the price a learner driver has to fork out here in Britain.

They do however have to stay on a provisional licence once they pass their test for three years and so long as they have a clean record at the end of this period, they will be granted a full licence.

Third on the list was the US, where the cost of a single lesson was £86, however the price varied significantly from state to state.

The most expensive European country was Germany and the second most expensive country after Hong Kong, yet learner drivers in Germany pay around £1,000 less.

Learner drivers in Germany have to fork out £364 for both their theory and practical test – almost triple what learners have to pay in the UK.

The costs are also impacted by the number of recommended lessons for each country which vary widely. In Italy for example, it’s mandatory for learners to have just 6 lessons, whereas here in Britain we have one of the highest number of recommended lessons at 47.

Also, different countries have different requirements that each driver must follow, so in Sweden for instance, a learner driver has to have a mandatory eye test before they can even start to learn to drive at a cost of £17.

And whilst the UK did end up in 5th place on the list, it’s fair to say that learner drivers here in Britain still have more freedom compared to other countries when it comes to driving.

“Learning to drive can be an expensive business but UK learners are relatively lucky in that they can choose to learn with a parent or friend if they have the required experience which can help to reduce the costs, even if those lessons are mixed with official tuition from a registered driving instructor,” said Jean-Baptiste Limare, head of Veygo.

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